The room into which Shugireth Darkstar teleported was pitch black except for the silver shimmerings of the manalines that ran up and down the walls, disappearing through the door. Those silvery circuits were used by the central gemheart to distribute power. It was the magical equivalent of an electrical lighting system, among other things. Soon, a strange rumbling whirr began, and magical currents started their frantic dash through the old circuits.

If Caia was to be believed, then it had most likely been a millenium since this place had seen a living being. Shu was a little amazed at the fact that things still seemed to work.

He had half expected to find himself meandering through a ruin, a heavy blanket of melancholy overlaying his very being. Instead, he had found things much as he had left them in Edge. Very Curious.

The illumination of the teleportation Narthex began gradually, but soon the soft white light had spread beyond the little receiving area. The stone door leading out of the Narthex, slid open at his approach.

I'm home, he thought to himself as he walked down the tall corridor, kind of amazed that this place still existed, and that it was still in such a pristine condition. It should atleast have accumulated some dust, but no, it was impeccably clean.

The heads of ancient raidbosses lined every corridor and took Shu down memory lane as he strolled through his home. Lines of white light streaked across the ceiling as he walked, illuminating the old mana circuits that carried energy to and fro in the HQ, or Sanctuary of Pandemonium as it was otherwise known.

Slowly but surely, Shugireth Darkstar made his way to the old conference chamber of thirteen. The very chamber in which he had spent his last hour before Edge shut down.

It really was weird, seeing this place exist. So far, the world hadn't seemed much like Edge Online, but the fact that the Sanctuary existed, proved to him once and for all that yes, indeed, this was the world of Edge Online.

He half expected his Commanders to be sitting there waiting for him, but of course they were not. All of his former comrades, his friends and allies, were gone... long gone. It was strange. It hadn't been that long ago for him, but the way they had seperated brought a finality to the whole thing, hammering home the fact that he would never see his old comrades again.

The oblong obsidian table stood abandoned, the thirteen seats of Pandemonium empty. His footsteps echoed throughout the spacious chamber as he walked over to the message board. This was where he posted GMOTD's, or guild messages of the day. After writing on that oldschool blackboard, the text would be transmitted via the AI interface to the players in his guild. It helped keep them on track when farming for raids and progressing through content, as everyone then knew what to do and which task to work on.

Tentatively, his small, pale hand hovered over the blackboard. What to do, what to do? This wasn't Edge online, but at the same time it was his world. The world that he had known before. Yet it wasn't. The time had come for him to make a new beginning, to forge a fresh path for himself.

But where should he go? At what objective should he direct the might of Pandemonium today?

It was a question which the Master of Pandemonium frequently asked himself. But now, he had no councillors with whom to discuss these things. That made it all the more difficult for him, and just served to underline the fact that he was indeed alone.

Chuckling darkly to himself, Shugireth glanced around the room, his eyes falling on the empty chairs. What might? Everyone was gone. Still, the question remained relevant. What to do? Should he go to the capitol cities of the Azure kingdom and the Empire to post a recruitment ad for his guild?

Or should he perhaps pay a visit to the Emperor directly? Where was the Sanctuary even located? Was it still inside the playermade zone underneath the great mountain in the Central kingdom, which he supposed was now the Empire.. or had it been moved?

Did anyone else live in the zone or had it become a ghost town after Edge shut down? There were too many things to consider, too many possible paths along which conquest could be resumed.

But in Shu's mind, only one thing truly mattered right now.

He cared little for power. He didn't feel like rebuilding his guild or conquering a kingdom. He felt like helping the little Princess. Lisa's anxiety was still fresh in his mind. Her agonized tears, her small fists clenched tightly. Her nightly writhings as she suffered through terrible nightmares. He couldn't imagine what it was like for her. But he had to help her somehow.

Lisa was special to him. She was his anchor in this world and the first person he'd met since reincarnating. Without her, he would've been set adrift on the winds of time, unable to settle down, unable to find his purpose. Her company warmed his heart, her scent calmed him down, her smile made him smile in return. She was a companion. Perhaps she would become a member of Pandemonium in the future?

If she didn't come to hate him, that was. Shit, no. He should put that from his mind. That painful feeling in his stomach was too much for him to face right now.

Pacing back and forth near the blackboard, his hand gripped a piece of chalk tightly. How could he help Lisa regain her spirit?

How could he help her become strong like the women he'd known in Edge? The truth was that he felt powerless in that regard. He had no experience with that kind of thing... so there was only one possible course of action he could take, only one thing he could think of, and that was the Chain Emporium.

The practice of slavery was in and of itself despicable and distasteful beyond what mere words could convey, but had it not been for Lisa's immediate involvement with the slavers from the Chain Emporium, this might not have become his first course of action in this world. However, no matter how Shu turned the issue around in his head, he could find no other acceptable course of action.

Firmly gripping the chalk, that small and delicate marble hand of his wrote the first GMOTD to grace this blackboard in a thousand years.

Guild objective 1: Find and destroy the operations of the Chain Emporium. Acquire information about the organization, then proceed to completely wipe it out.

Guild objective 2: Enlist the cooperation of the rulers in every land, to combat and eradicate the practice of slavery.

Pausing for a moment, Shu pondered. He and Lisa was part of a race of demonic beings apparently descended from Diablo and his kin. Such a taboo was hard to erase. However, if there were others like Lisa and him out there, did he not owe it to them to help somehow? After all, the him right now could be perceived as the figurehead or progenitor of that entire race. As far as he knew, demonkin were all either slaves or lambs for slaughter. That had to stop.

Guild objective 3: Find and rescue demonkin, offer sanctuary to them, and create general amnesty for them.

When the final words had been scribbled in chalk, he took heart. He was directionally challenged at the best of times, and only by creating goals for himself like this had he been able to get anything done in edge. His subordinates had helped him with this countless times, often suggesting appropriate dungeons to attack or spots to farm. Now that they were all gone, he needed to do things himself.

That was why he somehow felt a sense of accomplishment after writing on the blackboard. It was too early to celebrate though. After all, he hadn't actually done anything yet.

Before he got started, he needed information from Caia. She could wait a moment longer though.

Rushing through the Sanctuary's many spacious corridors, past monster monuments and golden suits of armor, he finally stepped into the more sparsely decorated outer sphere. There were two layers to the sanctuary. The inner sanctuary where he had just been, and the outer sanctuary which was over 10 times larger and held most of the superficial facilities and guest chambers.

The sanctuary itself was a huge castle-like megastructure, almost impervious to sieges and infiltrations. He hurried to one of the enormous crystal glass windows, climbed onto the large window pane and peered outside. What the hell was that? Through the glass, Shu saw only darkness, which was somewhat expected. However, something shimmered beyond the purple barrier in the distance and he wondered what was going on. He had to know now.

Leaving from one of the many side doors, he walked through the courtyard towards the outer gate and the edge of the purple barrier that encompassed the Sanctuary. Above him, the swirling darkness was kept at bay by a translucent purple barrier. Beyond it, up in the air, he thought he saw movement. What on earth was going on?

The playermade sections were all buried under the surface, quite similar to dungeons in that respect, though aerial and extra-planar dungeons existed aswell. The area within which they'd built their sanctuary was basically just an enormous hollow space in the earth that had been managed by players alone. In edge, this zone had housed thousands of players aligned with his guild.

Pushing aside the final, black and purple double-gate, Shu stepped outside of the sanctuary walls, stopping just before he went through the purple dome. On the other side--- was water. He was sure of it now. That densely packed darkness had to be water. He extended a hand, casting a max level light spell.

[Sphere of Light].

A massive globe of white light exploded forth from his palms. He nearly collapsed at what he saw. The entire cave system was under water, from the bottom where he stood all the way up to the ceiling more than a mile above his head. It was like a pocket of the ocean, and various strange creatures swam about in the enormous space. Even his max level light magic could only reach out a few miles, but that was enough to see the abandoned village in the distance and hundreds of different creatures swimming about in the depths.

From groups of small transluscent white fish, to huge shark like monsters the size of blue whales, to purple and black star-octupi that would easily be able to take down an aircraft carrier.

There were all manner of strange creatures in the waters.

He supposed this place had somehow joined with the ocean, perhaps if the main underground tunnels had been breached? A few of the tunnels did lead to aquatic dungeons, so perhaps these were dungeon mobs?

He watched with fascination as a fish the size of a small bus, swam past the purple dome right infront of him. It had a strange glowing lure attached to its forehead, that it waved about, no doubt trying to lure some smaller prey into its maw.

This was one hell of a thing to have in his backyard, but who was he to complain? It was pretty fricking cool actually. He really wished Lisa could see this right now. He wanted to watch her expression as she looked out into this fantastical underwater ocean. He wanted to watch her beautiful purplish green eyes expanding, her cute little lips pouting in an O of surprise, her belated tentative smile of amazement...

The thought of one day standing here with Lisa by his side, made him steel his resolve.

His absentminded smile froze on his lips when he saw a strange blue light in the distance. From it, he could feel the emanations of mana. A steady, pulsing release of carefully controlled mana. It was not the kind of thing he expected from a monster or dungeon mob.

Squinting, he tried to make out what it was but couldn't. It was simply too far away, several miles in fact.

He extinguished his own light, quickly taking out the guild chest. With deft, economic motions, Shu fished out his old raid gear and proceeded to don it. Better safe than sorry when facing the unknown. The mobs of those aquatic raid dungeons had been decently high level and he was unsure what that blue light was. He was confident that he could prevail against whatever it was, but he would never be careless enough to simply wade through the barrier without proper preparations.

As soon as his hand gripped the void black robe, he slowed down.

One at a time, he fished out the 4 parts of his equipment that made up one of the few unique legendary sets in Edge Online.

[The Empyrean Vestiges of the Dark God, Unique Legendary Set].

[Dark God's Gloves of Mana Binding].

[Robe of Necrus' the Darkmaster].

[Illubriel's silk trousers].

[Boots of the damned Bastion].

Equip!

The robe fit over his tunic, falling around him like a Sith mantle with the hood pulled back. The entire set was darker than night, and looking at it was like peering through a black hole directly into the void itself.

Next, Shugireth pulled out a legendary crafted item, one of only 7 such guild relics that existed in Edge online. It had taken his guild years to craft it, and an unfathomable amount of resources from high tier raids had gone into it.

People always called it the Crown of Pandemonium. It was a jagged black crown with the symbol of his guild displayed clearly on the front of it.

[Crown of Pandemonium].

Equip!

Equipping it, a ghostly dark Purple symbol of Pandemonium shone on Shu's forehead.

Finally, he reached in and took hold of his old weapon.

[Apophis The Unmaker].

It was a twisted staff of metallic crimson, the color of dried blood imbued with the spirit of a vengeful godslaying demon. At its tip hovered a burning orb of darkness and from within that dark orb, a malicious red eye stared hatefully out at the world, twitching and jerking about like a mini eye of sauron.

As soon as he gripped the blood-colored metal staff, a dark and raspy voice echoed inside his skull. ”Master...” The voice rasped, scratching at the inside of his head in an old and familiar way. Far from it being uncomfortable, that familiar sensation soothed his mind.

He took heart at hearing the familiar voice of his old companion. In fact, he found a tear sliding down his cheek. This voice belonged to an entity who had existed in Edge Online. It was something, no, someone he knew.

”You're here. It's good that you're here.” Shu said, gripping Apophis tightly in his small hand, preparing to venture out into the underwater lake that had once been a playermade Kingdom.

”You look different, My master.” Apophis rasped.

Grinning, Shu walked towards the edge of the purple dome and cast a few shields on himself.

[Obsidian Shield].

[Mantle of Erebus].

[Obsidian Barrier].

[Mantle of Nyx].

Two filmy obsidian domes, one larger than the other, enveloped Shu, and translucent black flames of two kinds swirled around his body as though they were burning him alive. Now he was beginning to resemble his old self a little. Oh wait. Chuckling quietly to himself, Shu took off the glasses he had been wearing since his meeting with Caia's group and slipped them into an inner pocket. He then unbound his hair, allowing it to dance wildly in tandem with the black flames.

”I am a little different, my old friend, but I am still the Master of Pandemonium.” Shu said, replying to Apophis earlier inquiry.

”My Master, your will is the will of the Unmaker.” His staff replied.

Shu stepped outside the purple dome, worrying for a moment that water would seep into the sanctuary. However, it obediently stayed away from his home, so all was well in funkytown.

Whilst he had been donning gear and reminiscing, the blue light had faded somewhat, as if it had moved away from him. Sighing, Shu began shadowstepping through the underwater lake with small teleports, disappearing and reappearing every single second. It was the safest way to proceed right now, but each time he appeared and disappeared, he sent out space ripples aswell as physical ripples in the water, making a mighty mess. However, given the circumstances, it could be excused.

The blue light suddenly fixated on him, moving closer at a fast pace. Noting this, he halted to observe its approach. It seemed to be sensitive to space magic. Interesting. As it got closer, a suspicion arose in his mind and he narrowed his eyes at the approaching blue ball.

Could it be remote viewing? It was a mid-tier channeled spell that allowed the caster and those with whom he was linked, to view remote locations. It was sort of like a remote controlled camera drone, a moving window to some place far away.

Shu hadn't learned the spell himself, focusing solely on combat magic and an optimal combat oriented spec. One of his commanders, Percian, had been crucial in battles. He gathered intelligence on the enemy by using precisely this spell, and a few others in combination, which enabled him to relay a real time info feed to Shugireth, so that he could marshal his troops with maximum efficiency even in the midst of a battlefield.

He considered it an invaluable support spell, and its appearance here in this underwater lake was far too strange for him to just ignore.

The blue ball stopped around 10 metres from Shu, then it circled around him once very slowly. By now he was sure that someone was using Remote view. If only he could get a bead on them by way of mana signature, then he could go there and find out what was going on and why they were remote viewing this place. Although he supposed it would be natural if the one behind the spell was a mage from the Empire, since this playermade zone was situated directly underneath the central region over which the so-called Empire ruled.

Perhaps they regarded this place as part of their Empire? If so, they would have to reconsider.